The Baby Consultant Read online

  “You’re kidding me, right?” Stu shot him a troubled glance. “If it’s that big a deal, why bother? You don’t have to get married again.”

  “I do.” He taped the box shut and ripped the tape away with unnecessary force. “I don’t want Lex to grow up without a mother. And brothers and sisters. And besides, Frannie and I are friends. We get along better than we ever would if we were in love.”

  “Are you telling me any woman would do?”

  “No, but I’m sure there were a number of them around who would have fit the bill.”

  Liar. He recognized the untruth before it even reached Stu’s ears. But admitting, even to himself, that Frannie was the only woman he would ever want again, was too scary to face. Too risky. He didn’t need risk; he had everything he could want.

  But Stu looked appalled. “Does Frannie know you assessed her and she came out with a good rating? What’d you do, on a scale of one to ten, how beautiful—”

  “A beautiful woman isn’t a perfect one.” His voice was mild. Since he’d met Frannie, Lannette’s power over him seemed to have dwindled to a very occasional, regretful twinge. The bitterness and anger that he’d nursed inside for so long simply seemed like too much effort. “And no, it doesn’t particularly matter what she looks like. We’re the best of friends, we enjoy being together, and to top it off, there’s the chemistry....”

  “The chemistry.” Stu’s voice went syrupy and soft. “Everybody knows the chemistry between you two is great, bud. You practically foam at the mouth when you spot her, and she looks at you like you’re the only man on the planet.” Stu paused and shook his head. “If I didn’t know you’d sworn off it, I’d swear you were in love with her.”

  The statement made Jack uneasy. “We’re not getting married for love. I did that once before and found out my judgment was lousy. This time I’m marrying for the right reasons.”

  Stu was staring at him, frowning. “Which are....”

  “Companionship, sex and great parenting skills.”

  He never knew what made him look up at that exact instant. Frannie stood in the doorway, one hand over her mouth, the fingers gripping her cheeks so tightly he could see the indentations in her fine skin. Above the hand, her face was white, a dull, shocked abnormal white around eyes gone so dark and dead that it frightened him.

  “Baby—” He half rose, extending a hand. Beside him, Stu uttered a shocked exclamation, but Jack was oblivious to it. All that mattered to him was making her understand what she’d overheard, what she’d obviously misunderstood. Misunderstood? screamed his conscience. He took a step toward her.

  And she bolted. In the time it took him to process the sounds he heard, she cleared the front door and threw herself into her van. He recovered enough to start to go after her, but as he reached the door, she fumbled her keys into the ignition and started the van with a roar, then backed out of his driveway wildly and took off.

  What had he done?

  His hands shook as he scrubbed them over his face. He turned back to Stu. “She heard...oh, God, she heard.”

  “So?”

  He whipped up his head to stare hard at his buddy. “What did you say?”

  “I said ‘So’ as in ‘So what?’” Stu’s face was set and angry, a look in his eyes Jack had never seen before off the lacrosse field. “You don’t love her. She might as well know the score going in. You’re right. You wouldn’t want to love Frannie like you loved Lannette. But you should love her for herself. Because she’s twice the woman your twitty ex was.” Stu set down the speaker he was still holding. “Since it looks like you won’t be moving after all, I’m going home. To the wife who loves me enough to put up with a weird-colored house because I love her, too.”

  He stomped out the still-open door as Jack sat numbly on the floor, the truth hitting him in great pounding hammers of reality.

  Frannie wasn’t Lannette.

  The truth was a brutal revelation.

  He’d been brutal. He’d killed the softer part of himself that once had believed in love and told himself she was a great companion. She understood him, she cared about his problems, she adored his niece. And the fact that they were so hot together in bed they damn near set the sheets afire, he’d figured was simple chemistry and incredible good fortune.

  Well, that was true. She was all those things. Because she loved him.

  She had plenty of friends. She didn’t need another friend. She needed someone who loved her... she needed him.

  And he needed her. She’d brought warmth and depth back into his life; he’d been simply skating over the surface. She completed him in a way no other woman ever had, ever could.

  Where would she go? He had to get her to come back, to listen, to forgive. His hands were still shaking as he reached for the telephone and the city directory.

  She had nowhere to go, she thought, her mind madly ticking over the possibilities. She couldn’t go home, that was the first place Jack would look.

  And her family was out, as were Dee and Jill, even April. She wouldn’t underestimate his power to charm her whereabouts out of any of them. Of course, that was assuming he even cared enough to look. Jack had more than his share of pride, and she doubted he’d be willing to broadcast the fact that he didn’t have a clue about where his fiancée had gotten to.

  No, she wouldn’t underestimate that formidable charm ever again. Nor the formidable mind behind it. She swung onto the beltway on-ramp, driving aimlessly, her chest heaving as she fought for self-control.

  Oh, he’d outmaneuvered her at every junction in their relationship, manipulated her every decision, every thought. And he’d done it on purpose.

  Funny how it was so easy to see when she looked back. She’d willingly fallen into the role of baby-sitter. He hadn’t given her time to think. No, he’d used the intensity of the attraction she felt to propel her into his arms, and then he’d moved so fast she didn’t even see it coming, wrapping her in false intimacy that she had believed was real. He’d all but moved into her house well before he’d proposed, he’d treated her like his missing half until she began to believe it. She’d even begun to hope that someday he might be able to return her love, so convincing had he been. He’d lulled her into believing he really wanted her. just like Oliver had.

  Her eyes burned but she’d die before she’d cry over him. The time on the dashboard clock caught her eye. Alexa should be getting hungry soon—She caught herself. Alexa wasn’t hers. She had no one to worry over, no one to cuddle, to make bottles or meals for... she had no one.

  Her breath caught on a dry sob and her stomach heaved. Fiercely she swallowed, refusing either to cry or throw up. She needed to find a place to think, to decide what to do. Instinct told her to flee. Keep going and never look back. Leave the city, the state, the country.

  If only it were that easy. What would it be like to simply quit your life and start fresh somewhere else? Somewhere where no one knew you, knew that twice you’d been engaged to men who didn’t love you, men who only wanted a baby-sitter with the added convenience of regular sex.

  She wasn’t a quitter, had never been one to give up in her entire life. Not when her mother died, not when her father died. Even when Oliver broke their engagement to marry someone he’d fallen in love with, she hadn’t given up, but had simply changed her dream, gone back to school and started doing what she’d always loved.

  She had no dreams to pursue anymore.

  An exit sign loomed, drawing her attention back to the road. She was near Timonium, and she started scanning the buildings along the beltway for a motel or hotel, a place where she could be invisible, just for one night. She could afford it. And thankfully, the business load was light right now. April would be okay if she called her and told her she wouldn’t be in tomorrow, that she’d see her on Monday.

  All she needed was a little time to peel away any vestiges of the dream she’d shared with Jack.

  Deirdre’s phone rang about 9:00 p.m. As she leaped to answer
it, Jack gripped the edges of his chair so hard his fingertips hurt. Across from him, Jillian divided her time between giving him evil glares and rocking Alexa, asleep in her arms.

  “Oh, honey,” Dee said. “I know. So does Jill. Are you all right? Where are you?”

  He was on his feet before he realized it, striding across the room. Deirdre put out one small hand like a traffic cop denying him the right to pass. She shook her head fiercely and hunched one shoulder away from him so he couldn’t take the phone from her.

  She spoke again. “Jack told us. He’s terribly worried—”

  She broke off and listened again, then said, “Do you want to come here? Or to Jill’s? Jack’s here but he’ll leave if we ask him to...yes, it does matter...all right, but call me in the morning so we know you’re okay. Otherwise, I’m calling the police and reporting you missing...okay. Goodbye.”

  He had never felt so powerless before, not even when Lannette had walked out. Then he’d been furious and hurt—and humiliated, mostly. He hadn’t been afraid that his whole life was coming to an end.

  He’d lived through ten hells in the past three hours, worrying that Frannie had had an accident, that she was dead or lying alone somewhere on a road or in a hospital where no one knew her.

  “Where is she?” he demanded hoarsely. “Is she all right?” He grabbed his keys from the table, ready to head out the door the second he found out where she was.

  “She sounds okay.” Deirdre put the phone back in its cradle and dragged quirking curls of black hair away from her eyes. She dropped onto a chair with a huge sigh and laid her head in her folded arms. “She’s in a motel. She wouldn’t say where. She’s going to call again in the morning.”

  Disappointment was such a bitter taste in his throat that he turned away from the two women, looking out Deirdre’s kitchen window to the fields beyond her yard. “Did she say anything else?”

  Silence. Then Dee’s soft voice: “She said she’ll be back by Monday, that April will take care of the shop tomorrow. She wants you to move your things out right away. Leave the key on the hall table. She says you don’t need to worry, that she’ll be fine.” She stopped and he realized Deirdre was crying, her voice thickening with the sobs she couldn’t hold back. “But she won’t be. If you don’t fix this, Jack, she’ll never be fine again.”

  God, could he feel any worse?

  Jillian made an involuntary sound and rose from the rocking chair to put her arm over Dee’s shaking shoulders. Over her head, her eyes bored into him like laser drills into steel. “You’re not going to move out, are you?”

  He shook his head. “Not until I’ve talked to her. After she listens, if she never wants to see me again, I’ll honor her wishes.” But he hoped to God it wouldn’t come to that. He felt like his future was a shining coin flipping through the air. Heads, he won, tails, he lost.

  “Good.” Her voice was sober. “If I thought for a second you didn’t love her, I’d kill you, Jack. I really would. But any idiot could see that you two loved each other. How could you be such an ass?”

  He shook his head. “I wish I knew.” But he did know. He’d been so damned busy insulating himself against the possibility of hurt that he’d destroyed the woman he was too stupid to admit he loved.

  “...with kids.”

  He looked up. Jillian was speaking and he chopped a hand through the air impatiently. “I didn’t hear you. Start over.”

  “I said, ‘It’s bad enough that she had one man who only wanted her for her way with kids.’” Her eyes were a stormy blue, telegraphing helpless fury. “Now it’s happened twice.”

  “What other man?” His antennae went up.

  Dee raised her head to stare at him. “You don’t know about—”

  “If I knew, why would I have asked?” he roared, patience exhausted. Dee jumped, but Jillian’s eyes gleamed as if she relished a good fight.

  “Frannie was engaged a few years ago. The guy was the first man she had ever been seriously interested in, because she was always too wrapped up in taking care of her family to date much. He was a widower with two little girls.”

  “He ditched her when he met some other woman,” Dee said baldly. “He told Frannie he was sorry but that he didn’t love her, that he’d admired her capacity for creating a home and caring for a family. The jerk actually told her he’d like her to meet the woman he loved, that he was sure they’d get to be good friends.”

  “That’s when she left Taneytown,” Jill added. “She went back to school full-time for two years and then started this business. She was just starting to feel good about herself again when you came along.”

  Jack felt sick inside. Why hadn’t she told him? He’d pressed and pressed until she’d let down her defenses and let herself trust him, and then he’d treated her like she was disposable. And replaceable. If only he’d known—what? What would he have done differently?

  The question couldn’t be answered. But he knew that if she couldn’t forgive him, his life wouldn’t be worth living. Even with Alexa’s presence, he’d just be going through the motions year after lonely year.

  It was the longest weekend of her life. She stayed away for three nights. She bought books to read, watched movies and took walks. She went to the mall in Columbia and wandered around but when she realized she kept floating into the baby department in the big stores, she left. She should have been in Bridals, checking out the new styles and getting ideas, but she couldn’t face wedding dresses right now.

  Wedding gowns inevitably reminded her of the one she’d worn that Jack had enjoyed so much. And each time she let that memory float to the surface, she wanted to cry again. That stupid gown must be cursed, ruining every wedding for which it was intended.

  But she didn’t cry. Though the lump in her chest had grown so hard and heavy it would probably need to be removed surgically, she took a certain grim comfort from knowing that he hadn’t made her cry.

  She checked out of the hotel on Sunday, but she didn’t go home until evening for fear that she might have to see Jack moving his things out. Around six that evening, she finally pulled her van into the driveway beside the entrance to her home. The house was dark and closed.

  Inside, she flipped on the entry light and walked to the phone. On the table lay a key—Jack’s key—and the lump swelled again, invading her throat. Using a pad of paper, she pushed it off the edge of the table into a drawer, which she closed. It might be stupid, but she couldn’t bring herself to touch it, to pick it up knowing that Jack’s hands had touched it last. She put both hands on the table and took deep breaths, forcing herself to think of nothing, of anything other than that key—until she could breathe without her breath catching.

  “Are you all right?”

  She jumped and whirled around. The deep, quiet voice was a shock, both because she recognized it and because she’d thought she was alone. Her heart started to race, and she swallowed as her stomach rolled. “Why are you here?”

  “I’d like to talk to you,” Jack said.

  After one brief glance she couldn’t look at him, and her gaze skittered madly over one thing, then another. “Where’s Alexa?”

  “Jillian’s baby-sitting.”

  Jillian? There were too many questions attached to that answer, so she ignored them. “Where’s your van?”

  “I got a ride over. I was afraid if you saw it, you wouldn’t come in.”

  She had herself under control now, and she was determined to stay that way. It was important to her that he not know how deeply he’d hurt her. “Why wouldn’t I come in?” she asked, striving for a pleasant, reasonable tone. “I live here, remember?”

  He ignored the rhetorical questions and took a step toward her.

  She stepped back instinctively, knowing that if he touched her, her precarious hold on her self-control would fly away. “Jack, I really don’t have anything to say to you. I wish you well and—”

  “You don’t have to say anything. I’m asking you to listen. Fran
nie, please.”

  His voice was low and quiet, so sincere that she had to grit her teeth against the sudden urge to smack his face. How dare he come here? How dare he use that intimate, “trust me” tone with her?

  “No,” she said. “I have a lot to do before the shop opens tomorrow.” She turned her back to him and put her hand on the doorknob, wishing she were big enough to throw him out. But that would require energy, which she simply couldn’t muster right now.

  “You aren’t going to open the shop tomorrow, remember? You’re closed until Wednesday.” His tone was still low and soothing, and she realized he’d moved to stand directly behind her.

  “Jack,” she said, and the weariness in her soul colored her voice, “I’m not going to marry you. If you have a shred of decency in you, you’ll let me alone right now. I don’t want to dissect what happened. I don’t need an explanation. I just want to get on with my life. Please. Go.”

  “My first wife walked out on me, did you know that?”

  She didn’t answer, she couldn’t tell him she knew because she was too busy fighting the waves of misery that lapped at the edges of her self-control.

  “For a long time, I said I’d never get married again. And when I finally got myself together, I decided I wasn’t ever going to care about a woman that way again.” He paused. “And I’ve never felt that way about anyone else.”

  Her hands flew from the doorknob to cover her mouth as she absorbed the cruel words.

  Jack paused as he saw her shoulders shake, but he couldn’t afford to stop. If she didn’t listen now, he doubted he’d ever get another chance. “I’ve never felt that way, because that was a silly infatuation that never should have gone any farther than a few dates. What I feel for you is so much stronger, and deeper, than I’ve ever known before, that it scared the hell out of me. I ran and hid rather than face being vulnerable again.”